February 18, 2012
So I found the Canadian Tire, and I found the Shopper’s Drug Mart, but……..where’s the beer store. When I casually asked someone, I got a long cold stare and a hint that maybe either I was stupid or maybe I was hinting that he was stupid, in which case……
The beer store!
The beer is at the Ultramar. That’s the gas station. And the kitchen party is at……..the Legion. It involves non-stop live music and dancing since it’s part of Winter Carnival. I suspect drinking too. If you want to go on a snowshoeing trip, you visit…….the cycling shop. If you need reproduction antique furniture, it’s at…….the tattoo parlour.
Where you go for snowshoeing trips.
One of the glories of travelling is seeing how other cultures live. Let me tell you, Pauline and I are immersed in another culture and love it. Things are different here.
Some more examples. As part of Corner Brook Winter Carnival there is a Jiggs Dinner with peas pudding, a Wild West Jib Fest with a jib competition, toutons, a Flipper Dinner, a Scottish Ceilidh, a Brewis Supper and Old Sam Day. Pauline’s right into the adventure spirit, especially since none of this seems to be too strenuous, unless it’s that suspicious jib competition, so I think we’ll be able to report on all these soon, whatever they are.
Tattoos and reproduction furniture!
Similarly, under Wanted to Buy in the paper, someone needs snaps, bark-pots, killicks, grapnels, jiggers, dappers, piggins, spudgels, gum-boots, cuffs, piss-quicks, grub boxes and lassy sticks. I am not making any of this up. (By the way, spell-check is absolutely going ballistic over this story.)
Kids do other different things here in this culture. They learn how to find a transmitting beacon buried in the snow as part of avalanche awareness day. Newfoundland Power has taken a large ad advising parents to warn their children about the dangers of playing on or near snow banks that are now close to overhead power lines. For a Girl Guides badge a local grade 4 girl has earned her endangered species badge by participating in the pine marten hair snag program for the Atlantic Canada Conservation Data Centre. She set up 10 boxes with bait and “glue paper” stapled to the sides. Whatever eats the bait leaves a hair sample on the glue paper. Common species can be eliminated but suspect hairs are sent off for DNA testing. This girl is nine. She checks her traps weekly, rebaiting, regluing and mailing.
The language is different here. Non-standard English is standard English here. It’s really difficult to give examples without appearing superior, and I would do anything to keep from offending our charming hosts in this different culture. These are two actual emails Pauline received this week: “What times do you be in your office on Fridays?” “I am sorry that I missed so many classes last week, everything turned against.”
Only in Corner Brook. Photo courtesy Walter Shears Gallery.
As well, everyone calls you “my dear” “my love” or even “my lover”. By the end of our last tour Pauline thought she’d been deared and darlinged to death, but so far this trip it’s all still charming. It’s kind of thrilling to be called “my lover” at a Tim Hortons without even a hint of self awareness.
I’ve got to go. Someone told me there was an ugly-stick for sale at The Newfoundland Emporium. Later, my dears.
Bill and Pauline's Excellent Adventures 